FROM DELHI TO UMBALA. 281 



glorious, work. Four or five forts, including those 

 of Kanaud and Jhajar, about sixty guns, seven or 

 eight lakhs of rupees, and plenty of other prize, fell 

 into the brigadier's hands. Hodson and his ubiq- 

 uitous troopers scoured the country to the south 

 and west of Delhi, giving the disaftected no rest. 

 In the intervals of other work their bold leader 

 wrote daily to his wife a lively record of each day's 

 proceedings. 



On the 2nd of October he tells her that he had 

 " remained behind the force for a day in order to 

 settle the business and pay up and discharge my 

 Intelligence establishment. ... I feel quite a free 

 man now. I have no work to do but my regiment ; 

 though, truth to tell, that is quite enough for one 

 man, even with so able and willing an assistant as 

 M'Dowell. I do not reckon on much fighting 

 where we are going, and the weather is now getting 

 very tolerable. The country we are going into 

 is much healthier than Delhi, and I expect much 

 benefit from the change of air and quiet marching. 

 After our return I shall get away, if but for a week ; 

 and then my anxiety is to join Napier, wherever he 

 may be." 



On the 3rd he speaks of the brigadier as " march- 

 ing at his favourite pace of six miles in five hours." 

 " I grieve daily," he adds, " in all bitterness for poor 

 Nicholson's death. He was a man such as one 

 rarely sees, — next to dear Sir Henry, our greatest 

 loss." 



On the afternoon of the 4th, while the column 

 halted at Gurgaon, he is ordered to go and " punish 

 some refractory villages a few miles off". . . . Tell 

 the swords I have kept are beautiful, and 



